美國政府可用現金比蘋果公司還少?
Apple now has more cash to spend than the United States government.
就現在來看，美國政府所能支配的現金還不及蘋果公司多。
Latest figures from the US Treasury Department show that the country has an operating cash balance of $73.7bn (£45.3bn). Apple's most recent financial results put its reserves at $76.4bn.
在最近來自於美國財政部的數字顯示，美國政府現在擁有的可支配現金爲737億美元。悲劇的是，蘋果公司近日公佈其可支配現金儲備有764億美元。
The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill to raise the country's debt ceiling, allowing it to borrow more money to cover spending commitments. If it fails to extend the current limit of $14.3 trillion dollars, the federal government could find itself struggling to make payments, and risks the loss of its AAA credit rating. The United States is currently spending around $200bn more than it collects in revenue every month.
美國政府的議員們近期將會投票決定是否要增加美國的債務上限，這樣做的目的在於批准美國政府更高的借貸來滿足開銷。如果這次投票不能通過增加超過14.3萬億的限額，那麼美國政府會發現自己在支付方面出現困難，而且也很可能丟掉AAA的信用評級（進一步瞭解信用評級）。按照當前的情況，美國政府每個月的開銷比其支出要多2000億美元。
Apple, on the other hand, is making money hand over fist, according to its financial results. In the three months ending 25 June, net income was 125% higher than a year earlier at $7.31bn. With more than $75bn either sitting in the bank or in easily accessible assets, there has been enormous speculation about what the company will do with the money. "Apple keeps its cards close to its chest," said Daniel Ashdown, an analyst at Juniper Research.
但是反觀蘋果公司，根據最近的財報顯示蘋果公司的賺錢速度非常快。在這3個月的結算中，蘋果的淨利潤比去年同期增長了125%，達到了731億美元。手中握有750億的現金在銀行或者非常容易變現的資產，業界已經對於蘋果想要用這些錢來幹什麼有了各種各樣的猜想。一位來自Juniper Research的研究員這樣說：我們都不知道蘋果葫蘆裏賣的什麼藥。
Industry watchers believe that it is building up a war chest to be used for strategic acquisitions of other businesses, and to secure technology patents. Bookstore Barnes and Noble and the online movie site Netflix have both been tipped as possible targets, said Mr Ashdown.
業界的觀察者們普遍認爲蘋果正在醞釀一場很大的收購戰，同時也準備繼續捍衛他們自己的專利。Ashdown表示，Bookstore Barnes、Noble和Netflix都是可能被收購的目標。
The company may also have its eye on smaller firms that develop systems Apple might want to add to its devices, such as voice recognition.
蘋果公司也可能正在物色一些和自己的行業息息相關的公司，比如那些開發系統的公司，蘋果可能會很樂意把那些技術加入到自己產品中，比如音頻識別系統。
Apple dipped into some of its reserves recently when it teamed-up with Microsoft to buy a batch of patents from defunct Canadian firm Nortel. The bidding consortium shelled out $4.5bn for more than 6,000 patents.
而最近蘋果也和微軟共同合作，開始動用自己的資金儲備來購買已經破產了的加拿大公司Nortel的專利。這個聯合財團開出了45億美元來收購這6000多項專利。
